山たかみくもゐに見ゆるさくら花
心の行きてをらぬ日ぞなき
心の行きてをらぬ日ぞなき
- Roma-ji
-
Yama takami kumoi ni miyuru sakurabana
kokoro no yukite oranu hi zo naki - English Translation
-
the mountain is high
so in the clouds they appear—
the cherry blossoms
never a day does my heart
not go there and long to pluck
- Meaning
- Because the mountain is high, the cherry blossoms appear among the clouds; there is not a day when my heart does not go there, wishing to pluck them.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitations
A spring poem among those written on a screen painted with scenes of the four seasons, at the fortieth-year celebration banquet of Fujiwara no Sadakuni, composed by the Naishi-no-Kami.
The poem is inspired by a screen painting of cherry blossoms blooming high in the clouds upon a lofty mountain. Though the place cannot truly be reached, there is not a single day when the heart does not long to go there and gather the blossoms.
Though classified as a felicitations poem, it does not directly express a wish for long life like the others.
- Author
- Oshikochi no Mitsune
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- for ten thousand years in the pine I have blessed you— my lord, it is so for beneath your thousand years’ shade I would dwell and live in peace
- on Kasuga plain while gathering the young herbs— for ten thousand years the heart that offers up such prayer the gods must surely know it
- not a rare voice and yet the cuckoo’s calling— through these many years never does it weary me still it leaves me unsated
- through Suminoe pines the autumn wind begins to blow— and with added sound the white waves off the open sea rise and join their voices too